Apple, or for that matter most of the technology companies, file a number of patents on a variety of things just to be sure that the competitors don’t get there first. And probably on that line of thought, Apple is learned to have filed a new patent application that could bring a carbon-fiber pane to the next generation iPad.

The patent, titled “Reinforced Device Housing” talks about an external housing for an electronic device that is made with “layered fiber-in-matrix type material” that could possibly make the casing lighter while also providing better protection from cracks.

Of course, this is just a patent application and may not end up being incorporated on the real device anytime soon. But looking at the utilities that this new casing brings to the table, chances that we may actually see this in an upcoming iPad are pretty good.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab may not have created a dent large enough on Apple’s market share as yet. Also, with most of the other iPad rivals still being in a work-in-progress stage or in danger of becoming a vaporware, there is no doubt that the iPad is still THE tablet computer to go for. But a recent study by UK based VoucherCodes has revealed that Apple could be beaten in the tablet wars with the right branding and pricing of iPad rivals.

The study notes that despite the inane loathing reserved for Dell and RIM by geeks on tech forums, these devices continue to enjoy decent branding and trust among customers. An interesting revelation is with respect to the pricing though. The study shows that for a $160 saving, over a third of the market could move away from Apple iPad to rival devices – quite a lesson to learn for Samsung.

A few months ago, I had written about an iPhone application called iGoogDocs. The application enabled one simple task – the ability to edit your Google Docs on the move from your iPhone. This was still pretty nifty since the official Google Docs applications did not allow this functionality over mobile phones.

That could change soon though. The company has announced a new version of Google Docs for mobile shall be launching soon that will make it possible for users to edit their documents on the move. This shall be a web application which means users can access it over their mobile browser and shall be rolled out to English speaking users across the world on Android 2.2, iPhone and iPad. Support for other languages are coming soon though it is not clear when the feature will be enabled for other platforms.

You can check out a demo of the new Google Docs application in the video below.

So here we are with one more comparison video pitting one new gadget on the block against the hyped Apple device in the market. This video has been produced by the folks at Research In Motion and so the disclaimers about the obvious bias towards the Playbook has to be factored in.

But putting aside all of that, the comparison video below is a good indicator of how good the Playbook that runs on a 1GHz dual core processor fares against the iPad that runs on a single core processor. Not just that, the Apple iPad naturally doesn’t come with Adobe Flash and that is obviously a downside. But what’s interesting is that even alternate open standards like HTML5 seem to perform better on the Playbook when compared to the iPad.

Apple has initiated an update to the back-end system of the iPad iTunes application that will bring the Ping music social network to the iPad. With this update, iPad users will notice a new Ping tab available at the bottom of the iTunes app if they have already authorized Ping for iTunes 10 on the desktop.

Like it is on the desktop, the Ping section on the iPad iTunes app is integrated with Twitter and lets the user to tweet out their favorite songs from the iTunes app itself. The Ping section will also let the users check on friend profiles, check out their Ping activity, etc.

The timing of this introduction is interesting as the new iOS 4.2 is speculated to launch very shortly. Apple is learned to have released a second GM build of iOS 4.2 to developers that apparently addresses a bug affecting Wi-Fi connectivity on the iPad.

an option that implements the “DFU” button in PwnageTool. This button (which you can use from Windows) lets you prepare your device for a custom DFU. Even if you’re purely a Windows user, you can get a trusted friend to run PwnageTool over your IPSW to create a custom IPSW. You can now install that custom IPSW on your own Windows box, after you run this redsn0w version.

The latest release is available for both the Windows and Mac platforms and makes use of the very same Limera1n exploit that was used by George Hotz as well as the Chronic Dev team in their jailbreak releases. You can hit this link to read more about the latest update as well as on other important instructions.

What Skyfire basically does is that it uses a proxy browser to remotely interpret Flash content and transcodes them into an iOS compatible format before it is rendered on the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. This does not violate any of Apple’s terms since all the transcoding happens remotely and not over the application on the users’ end.

However, a point to note here. This application will only help you “watch” Flash based content and you cannot interact with them. That means, playing Flash games on your iPhone is still not available as yet. Skyfire for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad should be available on the App Store at a price of $2.99 starting tomorrow.

Sn0wbreeze, the popular jailbreak tool that lets Windows users jailbreak their iDevices will now be capable of jailbreaking an iPad running the upcoming iOS 4.2 platform. If you are not aware, Sn0wbreeze is the Windows jailbreak tool that is similar to the PwnageTool that works on Mac computers. The latest update makes use of the exploit that was unearthed by George Hotz; the popular jailbreaker who is known better as GeoHot, in his Limera1n exploit that was released as a jailbreak tool earlier this month. This is an untethered bootrom level jailbreak which means you don’t have to redo the jailbreak each time the iPad reboots.

But before you get excited, do note that we only have the confirmation of the rooting as of now and a public download is not out yet. In any case, most of you may not need it until the new iOS is out for public download. So expect a solution in place by then.

With the oncoming holiday shopping season presenting a great opportunity at maximizing the sale of Apple’s popular iPad, the company is now offering an option for personal engraving on iPads to customers. This is similar to the personal engraving that customers have long been availing for the iPods.

The personal engraving is free. However, this will marginally offset the regular shipping time from “within 24 hours” to “1-3 business days“. But this is a small compromise for a personalized buy. Also, with a number of customers looking at the iPad as a possible gifting option, Apple has also included the iPad in its holiday gift wrap program that will let users package their iPads in custom gift boxes. This is not free though and comes at a price of $5.00.

You can order your personally engraved iPad from the Apple Store here.

An Italian website has published details about a relatively simple exploit that has been discovered on the iPad that will make it extremely easy for iPad users to access paid iPad applications for free. The exploit involves accessing the .plist file on the iPad and changing the status of a command from “purchasable” to “viewable“. The paid apps like the New Yorker are noted to change their ‘Buy‘ buttons to ‘Download‘ once this is done enabling easy access. This can be done by anyone with basic computer skills.

Not all paid apps can be accessed this way though. Only applications that make use of Adobe’s Digital Content Viewer – that includes the Wired and The New Yorker apps – are vulnerable to this hack. Adobe issued a statement last week soon after the hack was discovered noting that they are working on this issue,

“We have confirmed that it is possible for experienced users with detailed instructions to access some digital publications on the iPad that have not been purchased. We are working on a fix and expect to deliver a new version of our Digital Content Viewer to publishers on Friday, October 8″

Interestingly, the hack appears to be working still; a week after Adobe’s self-imposed deadlines. It is not clear what is taking Adobe such a long time for the fix though.